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Bellingham, the footballer who invented playing at 22

2022-12-09T11:06:28.202Z


Versatile since he was a child and essential now in England, a coach told the player that he could be a 4, an 8 and a 10 at the same time


Bellingham drives the ball during the match against Senegal.Tolga Bozoglu (EFE)

The back of Jude Bellingham's shirt deciphers part of the enigma of one of the world's brightest young footballers, a sweeping appearance in England, on the radar of greats like Real Madrid and Liverpool for next summer.

Number 22 sums up his complex and versatile role on the pitch.

As a child, in the Birmingham youth academy, he thought he could be a good 10, but one of his coaches, Mike Dodds, already sensed that there was much more to that boy.

He explained that he could be a 22: "You can be a 4, an 8 and a 10. Someone who can do it all."

4+8+10=22.

Bellingham has been displaying that rare multi-functionality of a Swiss army knife for two years now in Europe with Borussia Dortmund, but with England in Qatar he has taken an extraordinary leap, and tomorrow France awaits him in the quarterfinals (22.00, World Goal).

Despite the fact that at 19 he is the youngest player in the English team, he has become the piece that adjusts any part of the team in which a gap is detected.

In the debut against Iran, for example, he scored England's first goal in the World Cup, a precise header after several movements with which he created spaces for the rest, until he found one for himself and scored.

This reading of the game amazes Yaya Touré, as he explained in

The Athletic

: “Bellingham is not only dangerous with the ball.

He understands that running without him is more important than running with him.

When you have the ball, everyone is focused on you, but running at the back, unselfish running, can throw off defenders and create space for a teammate in the right spot."

He excels in another more or less underground section: no one has won more

tackles

than him in the World Cup.

Only Achraf Hakimi, the soul of Morocco, and a right-back, has prevailed as many times as he has in those disputes, 11 by Opta's tally.

In England, the second who has won the most battles of this type is Kieran Trippier, another right back, and he is a long way off, with only four.

Bellingham throws himself into destruction with unreserved energy, in a display that also reflects a rare maturity in his reading of the game.

Like the runs he makes for others, he also chases some balls he doesn't steal, but that endeavor puts the opponent under pressure, which brings him closer to making a mistake, and moves England closer to a comeback.

In the round of 16 game against Senegal, his best late in the tournament, he did all of that and then, when England were suffering the most, he executed another prescient move.

When the team came from behind thanks to the support of Harry Kane, who fell back to the middle of the field to receive and relieve the pressure, Bellingham began a run before the ball reached the captain, and already aimed at his back .

First she moved a little closer to him, causing a subtle screen effect, and then, with his pair already confused, sped up behind him.

Kane gave him the ball, Bellingham entered the box and fed it back to Henderson, who scored and subdued Senegal.

At times, Bellingham looks like the oldest 19-year-old in football, like when in that same game he approached Kane, the captain, to tell him to forget about a chance he just missed.

He has spent years demonstrating a shocking maturity.

When he chose to go to Dortmund instead of United at 17, he did so for reasons that had nothing to do with his football career: "The way they integrate young people into the first team is on another level," he said in an interview in

The Guardian

newspaper shortly after the transfer was completed.

After the match against Senegal, Foden, another of the evening's highlights, summed up what those who play with him see: "He's going to be the best midfielder in the world."

Birmingham, where he only played 44 games, retired the significant number 22 when he went to Germany.

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Source: elparis

All sports articles on 2022-12-09

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